1839- Oberto premiered, an opera written by a new composer named Guisseppi Verdi. The great composer would go on to write Rigoletto, Aida and La Traviata.

1853- San Francisco passed a law to put up street signs at the intersections of major streets.

1876- Peter Tchaikovsky’s musical rhapsody the Marche Slav premiered.

1933- The Marx Bros classic Duck Soup premiered.

1968- THE HEIDI GAME- NBC was broadcasting a football game between the New York Jets and the Oakland Raiders. The game was running late and would interfere with the broadcast of the movie "Heidi". The network heads felt with the Jets leading 32-29 with 65 seconds left, why disappoint the kiddies? So they pre-empted the rest of the game to start the movie. Oakland won 43-32 in a miracle comeback scoring the final touchdown in the final nine seconds. The embarrassed programmers had to answer nationwide firestorm of complaints from outraged football fans. So to this day on television, no matter how dull a football game is, it is seen to its very end.

1978- This night, our world was rocked by a disturbance in The Force more powerful than the destruction of Alderon, It was "The Star Wars Holiday Special", a two-hour comedy variety show on CBS, with Harrison Ford, Beatrice Arthur and Nelvana’s animated cartoon.

1989- Don Bluth's animated film All Dogs Go to Heavenpremiered.

1994- The Sony Corporation posted a $2.7 billion dollar loss from it’s first year owning a Hollywood movie studio. Yet despite a lot of industry jokes ( “What’s the difference between Sony Pictures and the Titanic?-answer: The Titanic had entertainment.”)By 1996 the studio was on top with blockbusters like “Men in Black”